Flumble wrote:I never know what to make of words like "tier", "caveat" and "inventory". Why pronounce them as tear, cavee-at, inVENtory, rather than tyre, caf-feet, INventory?

Americans do pronounce it INventory.

(Also, we pronounce "tier" to be homophonous with "tear", but not like "tear", which is a homophone with "tare".)

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Flumble wrote:I never know what to make of words like "tier", "caveat" and "inventory". Why pronounce them as tear, cavee-at, inVENtory, rather than tyre, caf-feet, INventory?

Because the spelling of English words is a mess. I mean there's the word "pronounce", but the noun isn't spelled "pronounciation" for no adequate reason. Either keep the o in both, or drop it from both, you can't have your cake and eat it too...

Flumble wrote:I never know what to make of words like "tier", "caveat" and "inventory". Why pronounce them as tear, cavee-at, inVENtory, rather than tyre, caf-feet, INventory?

Because the spelling of English words is a mess. I mean there's the word "pronounce", but the noun isn't spelled "pronounciation" for no adequate reason. Either keep the o in both, or drop it from both, you can't have your cake and eat it too...

Well, there is an adequate reason, namely that it isn't pronounced like "pronounce+iation". The vowel changes to a short 'u' and is spelled as such.

The same kind of sound change happens all over English, it just isn't generally accompanied by a helpful spelling change:volcano/volcanic, grave/gravityserene/serenity, semen/seminalsuffice/sufficient, wise/wisdomphoto/photography, oppose/opposite

Mutex wrote:

flicky1991 wrote:

Mutex wrote:Same in the UK.

Maybe it depends where you are in the UK - I'm English and say "inVENtory". I've only ever heard "INventory" from Americans.

Well, South England currently in London. I'm struggling to imagine how inVENtory even sounds.

Like the verb "invent", followed by unstressed "ory". It sounds not unlike "dispensary".

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Flumble wrote:I never know what to make of words like "tier", "caveat" and "inventory". Why pronounce them as tear, cavee-at, inVENtory, rather than tyre, caf-feet, INventory?

tear vs tyre - no reason I can think of other than historycavee-at vs caf-feet - my wife the Linguist would say that the Fs in caf-feet would likely shift to voiced Vs due to the vowels before and after. Other than that , point taken. Stolen from another language, so pronouncing it like the victims wouldinVENtory vs INventory Oh, wow, SO many cases of this in the English language.

I'm pretty sure the last one is due simply to regional variation, and that there are lingusts getting their PHDs today for tracking the boundaries of the various usages. Examples from the Wikipedia:poLICE vs POHleece ceMENT vs CEEment thanksGIVing vs THANKSgivingJuly vs JEWlie

My favorite (missing from the Wiki) is pecan, with pronunciations of payCAHN and PEE-can. I've heard southerners talk each other into using the snootier-sounding payCAHN pronunciation by saying, "Yeah, I've got me a pee-can; I use it up in the hunting blind so I don't have to climb down to relieve myself."

Has anyone got examples where there are differences in stress between US and other countries' cadence on common words?

PS - Ninja'd by so many people regarding INventory; I'd actually expect "inVENtree" to be a more British form for this. Oh, well, I've already typed it...

For most people this sound change is probably a good thing: it makes it easier to talk about a "seminal work" without an unwanted mental picture of the pages being stuck together. Once you make the association it's hard to avoid the yuck factor. (I'd rather go to a lecture than a seminar for similar reasons).

gmalivuk wrote:

Mutex wrote:Well, South England currently in London. I'm struggling to imagine how inVENtory even sounds.

Like the verb "invent", followed by unstressed "ory". It sounds not unlike "dispensary".

They're different words with the same spelling (heteronyms). An inVENtory is a place where one invents things.

So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

I probably went five or ten years before I realized that "debacle" was not pronounced similarly to "spectacle" and "miracle". (That could have been a real DEB-uh-kul if I said it somewhere before I learned the right way.)

The opposite experience actually comes to mind, for me. I've seen/heard people use macabre on TV and the like, but didn't encounter it in print until a few years ago. I was reading something aloud and just pronounced it "mack-a-brr", then paused, did a double-take, and was all "Woah!".

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

I probably went five or ten years before I realized that "debacle" was not pronounced similarly to "spectacle" and "miracle". (That could have been a real DEB-uh-kul if I said it somewhere before I learned the right way.)

It's ironic that being better-read and more learned can actually make you seem more ignorant. I have a friend who's always been a voracious reader: at college his vocabulary far outstripped the rest of us (we tested him once by opening the dictionary at random and choosing obscure words - he got every single one right) but he'd often mispronounce things. We had a good laugh at his "Don Quick-sote"; but on the other hand his pronunciation of "Genghis Khan" turned out later to be a closer approximation of the Mongolian than the normal way British English speakers say it (with two hard g's).

Oops, to everyone quoting me: I messed up the stressing of inventory. Meant to say I first learned to pronounce it inVENTory and then learned most of the world says INventory.Good to know that some places do stress the second syllable (or they have a special type of laboratory called the "invent-ory"), so I wasn't even wrong!

My career has been doing inventory financing for retail dealers. Several years ago, it was for the US (VT) based subsidiary of a French-Canadian company. My boss would say 'inVENtory' control was 'maDATory'...and if we giggled, he would curse at us in what I assume was French.

And is it me, or is INsurance wrong?

Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. - A. Hamilton

Flumble wrote:Oops, to everyone quoting me: I messed up the stressing of inventory. Meant to say I first learned to pronounce it inVENTory and then learned most of the world says INventory.Good to know that some places do stress the second syllable (or they have a special type of laboratory called the "invent-ory"), so I wasn't even wrong!

My sister-in-law is American and commented that people in England pronounce "schedule" as "shedule" rather than "skedule". I responded that I'd never heard anyone pronounce it that way in my life. Within a week of that conversation I heard people here pronounce it like that, and I've heard it multiple times since.

So your post just made me think I'd been oblivious to another way people around me pronounce things.

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

I probably went five or ten years before I realized that "debacle" was not pronounced similarly to "spectacle" and "miracle". (That could have been a real DEB-uh-kul if I said it somewhere before I learned the right way.)

For me that's heresy and sidereal.heresy: I saw "HEAR-say" instead of "HAIR-uh-see"sidereal: I saw "SIDE-real" instead of "sid-AIR-ee-al"

Coincidentally, I encountered both of these words while reading Science Fiction novels which are no longer in my possession, and whose titles I don't remember

So, time for a "name that book" challenge, I guess? I'd like to re-read these someday, or at least expose my kids to them.

First book: a group of robotic probes leave from their home world shortly before its sun goes nova (memorable quote: "that sort of thing will ruin your whole day"). They set up a home for themselves on an ice-covered moon in the Sol system and developed into artificial lifeforms with strong artificial intelligence, a reproductive cycle resembling human parenthood, science and religion. Humans arrive and think that the robots are expressionless because we can't see in infrared (robot facial features are written in heat blooms on the flat metal surface) and the robots think humans are amorphous blobs because of the rapid heat variation in the air over our skin. One robot is accused of heresy for asserting that he could walk in a straight line and come back around to the starting point from the other direction (because the planet is spherical). Edit: identified as Code of the Lifemaker by James P Hogan, thanks to speising!

Second book: In the Foundation universe, but possibly not written by Azimov? Set in a post-Second-Foundation era when the study of psychohistory is a PHD subject available to anyone, and lots of kids in college have implants that allow them to not only store memories but offload mental effort into an external computer. The protagonist travels to earth and confirms its identity by measuring the oscillation period of a mass at the end of a one-meter string and notes that it equals one sidereal second for the planet.

Spoiler:

The protagonist ends up discovering a flaw in the original math for psychohistory caused by entropy limiting the amount of information from the past we can encode in the present, and symmetrically limiting our ability to predict the future. He fixes this by writing new equations to compensate for chaotic drift and sets the Universe back on the path set by the Seldon Plan.

Flumble wrote:I never know what to make of words like "tier", "caveat" and "inventory". Why pronounce them as tear, cavee-at , inVENtory, rather than tyre, caf-feet, INventory?

I probably do pronounce it more as INV-ent-ory than in-VENT-ory (actually, the ory is more like 'ry), although I wouldn't rule out IN-ven-TOR-y, either.

The trouble being that I'm not the best person to judge. Even if I could listen to myself unbiased (if I'm paying attention, I'm not saying it 'naturally') I still have to account for my accent. (Which I don't have, natchruly.)

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

Chimera. I've always pronounced it "SHIM-eh-rah", and wrote a play which used the word. The actor reading it was an architectural designer, (it's used in architecture) and he pronounced it "ky-MEH-rah", and I "corrected" him in a reading we had.

He didn't say anything but went with it; I've since looked it up and have found nowhere that indicates that my pronunciation was even in use.

Jose

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Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

Chimera. I've always pronounced it "SHIM-eh-rah", and wrote a play which used the word. The actor reading it was an architectural designer, (it's used in architecture) and he pronounced it "ky-MEH-rah", and I "corrected" him in a reading we had.

He didn't say anything but went with it; I've since looked it up and have found nowhere that indicates that my pronunciation was even in use.

Jose

Rule of thumb with pronunciation - If two people pronounce a word differently, one way is consistent with the spelling, and the other way is really weird, the second one is probably correct.

Zinho wrote:First book: a group of robotic probes leave from their home world shortly before its sun goes nova (memorable quote: "that sort of thing will ruin your whole day"). They set up a home for themselves on an ice-covered moon in the Sol system and developed into artificial lifeforms with strong artificial intelligence, a reproductive cycle resembling human parenthood, science and religion. Humans arrive and think that the robots are expressionless because we can't see in infrared (robot facial features are written in heat blooms on the flat metal surface) and the robots think humans are amorphous blobs because of the rapid heat variation in the air over our skin. One robot is accused of heresy for asserting that he could walk in a straight line and come back around to the starting point from the other direction (because the planet is spherical).

It's like that (give or take an elongated vowel) in the Motherland, so you're not mangling the language (much!) on your own account.

Do you have any "Leicester"s near you? Or a"Towcester" (sounds like you put bread slices in it), "Tintwistle" (you put it on a christmas tree) to, "Wymondham" (to make them out of breath) or "Kirkby" ('a bit like a a sidewalk edge').

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

Chimera. I've always pronounced it "SHIM-eh-rah", and wrote a play which used the word. The actor reading it was an architectural designer, (it's used in architecture) and he pronounced it "ky-MEH-rah", and I "corrected" him in a reading we had.

He didn't say anything but went with it; I've since looked it up and have found nowhere that indicates that my pronunciation was even in use.

Jose

Rule of thumb with pronunciation - If two people pronounce a word differently, one way is consistent with the spelling, and the other way is really weird, the second one is probably correct.

Except that the pronunciation of "chimera" is also consistent with the spelling, just like "technology" and "mechanism" and "chemistry" and "charisma" and "chorus" and "chaos" are.

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Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

Chimera. I've always pronounced it "SHIM-eh-rah", and wrote a play which used the word. The actor reading it was an architectural designer, (it's used in architecture) and he pronounced it "ky-MEH-rah", and I "corrected" him in a reading we had.

He didn't say anything but went with it; I've since looked it up and have found nowhere that indicates that my pronunciation was even in use.

Jose

Rule of thumb with pronunciation - If two people pronounce a word differently, one way is consistent with the spelling, and the other way is really weird, the second one is probably correct.

Except that the pronunciation of "chimera" is also consistent with the spelling, just like "technology" and "mechanism" and "chemistry" and "charisma" and "chorus" and "chaos" are.

Rule of thumb with pronunciation - If two people pronounce a word differently, and one way is the most obvious way to pronounce it, the other one is probably correct.

gmalivuk wrote:Well, there is an adequate reason, namely that it isn't pronounced like "pronounce+iation". The vowel changes to a short 'u' and is spelled as such.

Well, shit. Then I've been mispronouncing one of them all this time.Although the inconsistency is still bugging me. If other words don't change, why does this one? Of course my native language probably has a myriad of these I just don't notice because I grew up with them.

Weeks wrote:

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

I got (and expand) about 70% of my English vocabulary by reading it before hearing it, so I am already doomed

somitomi wrote:Although the inconsistency is still bugging me. If other words don't change, why does this one?

The diphthong in "pronounce" has to be spelled with two letters, because we don't have any single letter that has that sound. The diphthongs in the other "long" vowels in English are often spelled just with that vowel (though there may be a silent 'e' at the end of the word if it's in the last syllable).

(The other example of trisyllabic laxing that has a spelling change is between "school" and "scholarly". Though it's not just in trisyllables that it happens, because of course "scholar" also has the short vowel.)

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

Chimera. I've always pronounced it "SHIM-eh-rah", and wrote a play which used the word. The actor reading it was an architectural designer, (it's used in architecture) and he pronounced it "ky-MEH-rah", and I "corrected" him in a reading we had.

He didn't say anything but went with it; I've since looked it up and have found nowhere that indicates that my pronunciation was even in use.

Jose

Reminds me of speculation I've long had about a line in the Aladdin song "Friend Like Me": the Genie sings "ya got me bonafide certified", pronounced "boh-nah-fee-day", while I suspect the writer of that line intended it to be (mis)pronounced as "boh-nah-fyd" to rhyme with "certified".

Heh, for years I had two words in my head, the spoken eh-pito-me and the written EPPY-tome-EH. They both meant the same thing, but I didn't associate them with one another. One day I was watching a video with subtitles on and read one word as another was spoken. Definitely a mind-blown moment.

To this day I still mentally "mispronounce" it the first time I read it.

Mikeski wrote:So, does anyone else have any words that they (mentally) pronounced incorrectly because they read them long before they heard them spoken?

I probably went five or ten years before I realized that "debacle" was not pronounced similarly to "spectacle" and "miracle". (That could have been a real DEB-uh-kul if I said it somewhere before I learned the right way.)

My headcanon for this one was de-BAKE-ull until I looked it up just now.

I'm going to step off the LEM now... here we are, Pismo Beach and all the clams we can eat

eSOANEM wrote:If Fonzie's on the order of 100 zeptokelvin, I think he has bigger problems than difracting through doors.